Yeah I've always wondered that about Nachtmystium. Amazingly average musically, visually and everything in between. Maybe kids just need something easy to digest and shit out in a few years.

They were the first band I thought of when reading this. How they went from being bland Norse-styled black metal on Autopsy Kitchen to Century Media pop-metal darlings is waaaay beyond my understanding. It's not like good music had anything to do with it, at least.

First band that popped in my head. I think they basically tried every 'angle' of Black Metal (please, I use the term lightly here) until something stuck that got them attention...which apparently was Coldplay worship with distorted guitars. They did the whole sort-of-NS nonsense, there was an old-school evil album in there somewhere I believe, hippie influences and now we're at Coldplay. I mean fuck, something HAD to stick in that chinese menu of options.

Maybe Opeth. Orchid and Morningrise are awesome albums and the people dissing them now most likely didn't even know them back then at all and only got introduced when they were already heading much more towards to prog and like with many other bands, their fans annoys people even more than their music. After the first 2 albums, I would've never guessed how big they eventually became as they were far from popular stuff back then, but there's a lot of prog fans in the world and now they're quite huge. They should've never got involved with Wilson, he ruined them.

Agreed, I got into them when Morningrise came out. That album blew me away, because I hadn't heard anything like it before.

It's amazing how much they've come into the mainstream since those times. Now, it's mostly musician nerds who think they're great. I still like Still Life and everything before, though. Great feeling on those albums...

Yeah I've always wondered that about Nachtmystium. Amazingly average musically, visually and everything in between. Maybe kids just need something easy to digest and shit out in a few years.

They were the first band I thought of when reading this. How they went from being bland Norse-styled black metal on Autopsy Kitchen to Century Media pop-metal darlings is waaaay beyond my understanding. It's not like good music had anything to do with it, at least.

First band that popped in my head. I think they basically tried every 'angle' of Black Metal (please, I use the term lightly here) until something stuck that got them attention...which apparently was Coldplay worship with distorted guitars. They did the whole sort-of-NS nonsense, there was an old-school evil album in there somewhere I believe, hippie influences and now we're at Coldplay. I mean fuck, something HAD to stick in that chinese menu of options.

Vlad Tepes/Mutiilation and all the ridiculous LLN circus. Retarded garbage when it came out, retarded garbage now. I knew black metal fans are only slightly smarter than crustaceans but I thought not even people with severe mental issues would ever find that shit remotely interesting.

Bottom line, do never underestimate metalheads' natural retardedness.

If success was measured in very limited popularity you would be correct. It is, however, not measured in such a way and therefor you are wrong.

I think the comment about "easy to digest" sums it all up: music that's passable but unremarkable usually appeals to the most common-folk, as it is easy to get into but not really challenging in any way. I guess Xasthur was always puzzling to me. The music is (in my opinion) not really good or bad, but it became the number-one dropped name by every idiot pitchfork-type journalist when talking about BM for the past ten years, as if there are no other points of reference...

Burzum is the most obvious candidate for me. I cannot fucking believe Varg ended up being this worldwide legend in music. This has little to do with the music itself, since it's pretty strange that bm ever got very big at all if you think about it. The reason I'm still surprised at Varg's success is that he seems to be the only guy in metal that gets a pass on politics and deeds that would get almost any other bm act blacklisted from anything remotely mainstream.

Maybe the fact that Varg is so disjointed and silly with his statements causes people to take him more as a joke.

He made good music, if the music was shit he would not have received the attention he got when he was in jail. You can only get so far when you kill a guy...

It is strange but most people I have met/spoken to/corresponded with outside "the Black Metal circle" that have liked Burzum have been anarchists or leftists. I find it really strange that people are listening to Burzum and buying the albums when what he did should go against everything they are for. "I like the music" was a common phrase but isn't that just like saying you are a vegetarian but continue eating meat because "you enjoy the texture"? People are stupid, buy yourself a helmet and get used to it!